Audio 2:23
Qld scientists move to drought-proof rice

Stephanie SmailUpdated
Sat 8 Mar 2014, 9:48 AM AEDT

Queensland scientists are investigating ways to drought-proof Australia's rice crop. The research team has identified plant genes that could help rice survive in saltier soil, with less water. They found them in a tough native grass.

Transcript

The research team has identified plant genes that could help rice survive in saltier soil, with less water.

From Brisbane, Stephanie Smail reports.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: Rice is Australia's third largest grain export and contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to the economy every year.

But Sagadevan Mundree from the Queensland University of Technology says hot, dry weather in recent years has slashed output by up to 40 per cent.

He's looking at ways to genetically modify rice to make it more resilient.

SAGADEVAN MUNDREE: By nature, rice requires a lot of water to be present, because it requires a bit of water-logging conditions. We believe that by actually improving the genetics, you can now start to grow them in more marginal areas with less water.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: The push to develop weather-resistant rice led researchers to a native Australian plant.

It's called 'five minute grass', and belongs to the aptly-named resurrection plant family.

Professor Mundree says scientists collected some from Charleville in Queensland's south-west and set about analysing what makes it so tough.

SAGADEVAN MUNDRY: Most plants when exposed to severe stress, whether it is salinity, drought, or even high temperature, they reach a certain point when exposed to this stress where they make a conscious effort that it's too expensive, energy-wise, to keep itself, sustain itself, so they initiate what is called program cell death and self-destruct. We find the total opposite effect in the resurrection plant, where it's actually producing anti-program cell death genes.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: Sagadevan Mundree and his team want to use the genes that make the five minute grass so hardy to help make rice hardy too.

SAGADEVAN MUNDREE: If you take a look at the resurrection plant as an orchestra where you're getting a certain suite of instruments that are playing, many of these instruments may be present in rice, but not actually playing. Our intention is to actually find out which are those instruments and in doing so help, essentially through a breeding program, transfer them into varieties of rice that need these instruments and to actually switch them on.

STEPHANIE SMAIL: The Queensland scientists have teamed up with researchers in India for the project, which is still in its early stages.

Professor Mundree says the new plants will be tested in Australian conditions, and in the rice-growing region of Tamil Nadu in southern India when they're ready.